


Good Grief

by mickeysdean



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Hugging, Kissing, M/M, Reunions, ian goes to mexico, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:03:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickeysdean/pseuds/mickeysdean
Summary: He misses Mickey, so much that it fucking hurts. He misses his bright eyes and black hair. The way Mickey’s freckles were there but so much lighter than his own. His short temper and the way he said fuck every time he spoke. His tattoos and the way he’d crack his knuckles when some asshole at the alibi would piss him off. He misses the way he hugged Ian and the way he kissed him. All he has left are voicemails and an old burner phone.





	Good Grief

Ian didn’t know what he was feeling - which wasn’t unusual these days - but that didn’t make it any easier. He’s jealous, so fucking jealous that Carl was happy with Kassidi, the crazy bitch that she is. Because he was with the person he loved and Ian wasn’t. He’s angry because he had that chance and he threw it away all because he was scared of ruining it, of ruining Mickey’s life more than he already had. It was his fault that Mickey was in jail, his fault that he broke out, and his fault that Mickey now had to be on the run _by himself_ , even though he should never have gone to jail in the first place. 

He was lonely. The loneliest he thinks he’s ever been. He’s always had someone, whether it be a relationship or a friendship, but now he doesn’t. Mickey’s gone and Mandy hasn’t talked to him since she found out about the border. His family doesn’t care about him and they only act like they do when they think his meds have stopped working. There’s Trevor, but it’s not the same. He doesn’t want Trevor and Trevor’s company only ever makes him feel worse about everything else. He tried to ignore it and get him back, but Trevor wouldn’t take him, not like he had before. Ignoring it only lasted so long, and soon enough he can’t get through a conversation without just wanting to _cry_. 

He misses Mickey, so much that it fucking hurts. He misses his bright eyes and black hair. The way Mickey’s freckles were there but so much lighter than his own. His short temper and the way he said _fuck_ every time he spoke. His tattoos and the way he’d crack his knuckles when some asshole at the alibi would piss him off. He misses the way he hugged Ian and the way he kissed him. All he has left are voicemails and an old burner phone. 

_I’m worried about you.  
I love you. _

_I’m worried about you.  
I love you._

_I’m worried about you.  
I love you._

He listens to that more than he’d ever admit. It’s all he has left of Mickey. The voicemails from when he left with Yevgeny and from when he left with Monica. They take up his voicemail and there’s no room for new calls. He refuses to delete any of them because he’s scared of forgetting the sound of Mickey’s voice. 

Ignoring the sounds Carl and Kassidi are making, he pulls the headphones from his ears and gets up. He grabs the small, black flip phone from under his bed and leaves the room. Once he’s outside, leaning against the railing on the front steps, he opens it. It rings, and rings, and rings like it always does. Only this time, Mickey answers. 

_“The fuck you want, Gallagher?”_

_Mickmickmickmick._

“Mick,” he gasped. “Mick, I’m sorry. You have to know I’m sorry.” There is already tears prickling behind his eyes and his hand starts to shake where he grips the phone so tight his knuckles turn white. 

_“Sorry for what? Leaving me at the border or ever being with me at all?”_ He’s trying to sound angry, Ian can tell, but Ian knows him better than anyone else and he can hear the hurt in his voice. 

“The border and everything. Everything bad I ever did to you. God, there’s so much, Mick. All I ever did was hurt you. Why would you stay with me? Or come back after I left you?” He’s close to sobbing and yelling at the same time. He hates himself, fucking hates himself. He wants to take it all back. He wants to erase everything from the morning he woke up at Mickey’s house and stayed longer than he should have, and just go to work like he was supposed to. That morning was the first time he’d really hurt Mickey and he’d been doing it ever since. 

_“Why’d you do it then?”_ The fake anger is gone, now replaced entirely with hurt and sadness. 

“I don’t know, I don’t fucking know!” He’s yelling but his throat is thick and there are tears on his face, “I was scared, Mick. I already ruined your life, but I thought somehow I’d ruin it more. What if my meds crap out and I can’t get out of bed? What if I end up manic and get you caught somehow? What if I cheated on you again? I knew I’d fuck it up again, and I did and I fucking miss you but I don’t know how to fix it!” He hits the step below him, finally sobbing. 

_“Ian, Ian, hey. It’s okay-”_

“No, it’s not! I’m so sorry, but it’s not okay. I can’t make this okay! I just want you to know, alright? I just want you to know how _fucking_ sorry I am. Please tell me that you know.”

 _“I know, Ian, I do. It’s not your fault, you were allowed to be scared. I did stupid shit and got myself thrown in the joint, not you.”_

“But I could have gotten you out, you didn’t do anything, Mick. I should have fucking been there and visited and gotten you out.” 

_“What’s done is done, Ian.”_

“Can I still go with you?” He asked, voice hopeful. “Can I come find you now? I’ll stay. I promise I’ll stay.” 

_“I don’t know, Ian,”_ he says, voice cracking halfway through Ian’s name, _“I’m scared and I don’t know if I can trust you again.”_

He has every right, every fucking right not to trust Ian, but that doesn’t mean it stops hurting. Ian has to bite his fist to keep from sobbing again because he doesn’t want to make Mickey feel bad, not for this.

_“Can you give me some time?"_

“Yeah. Yeah, Mick, I can do that.” He breathes out, trying to calm himself down. 

_“You can still call me, talk to me. I just need time to feel safe again, okay?”_

“I’m sorry, I wanted you to feel safe with me but that’s just another thing that I fucked up, isn’t it?”

_“We’ve both fucked up. Stop putting all the blame on yourself.”_

“How are you, Mick?” He needs to change the subject because he’s so goddamn tired of crying. 

_“I’m good. Got a job and an apartment. It’s just bartending but the tips are good.”_ Ian can hear the smile in his voice, knows that Mickey is proud of himself. Ian is proud of him too. 

“Learn how to swim yet?”

_“Fuck no, man. I need someone to teach me that. Guess I’ll just have to wait for you to come down,”_ and Ian’s smiling, really smiling for the first time in weeks because even though he’s going to have to wait, he’s gonna be with Mickey again. 

“You even spend any time on the beach yet?”

_“I spend lots of time on the beach. I can’t even fucking tan, I just get more fucking freckles. I feel like you at fifteen.”_ He laughs and Ian thinks it's the most beautiful sound in the world.

“I’m gonna be even worse once I get down there. We can look stupid together.”

_“You’re gonna burn like a motherfucker before you get any more freckles.”_

“I’m okay with that.” He laughs a little, he’s finally happy and excited about something. He misses Mickey ad soon enough he’ll get to be with him again.”

_“I have to go now,”_ he sounds upset like he never wants to hang up, _“I’m working nights this week and I have to leave in a few minutes.”_

“Can I call you tomorrow?”

_“Course you can. Just call earlier so we have more time, okay?”_

“Okay,” he takes a deep breath, preparing for something he’s already done so many times, except he’d said it last in horrible circumstances, “Mick?”

_“Yeah?”_

“I love you.”

He hears Mickey take a sharp breath and he’s about to ramble about how Mickey doesn’t need to say it back, until, _“I love you too, Ian. Get some sleep.”_

The phone clicks and Ian doesn’t stop the smile on his face. 

-

Ian calls Mickey every day and Mickey answers every day. He saves up to buy a plane ticket and he waits. 

_“You got your shit packed yet, Gallagher?”_ Mickey asks, almost three months after they started talking again. 

Ian doesn’t think he’s ever smiled this big and he’s off his bed in a millisecond. “Do you want me to? 

_“When’s the next flight you can catch?”_ Mickey laughs when he hears Ian crash into the kitchen table at the bottom of the steps. _“Don’t hurt yourself, Ee.”_

Ian’s fingers fly across the keyboard of the laptop sitting on the kitchen counter and he almost throws it when it takes too long to load. “There’s a flight leaving in three hours. That’s enough time for me to pack and get a copy of my prescription.”

_“What time does it land?”_

“Should be just before midnight.” 

_“I’ll pick you up at the airport.”_ Ian is about to protest, worried about someone seeing Mickey, but he stops him, _“I’ll be fine. I can’t wait any longer to see you.”_

“I love you. I’ll call you before I get on the plane.”

_“I love you too.”_

-

He doesn’t tell Fiona where he’s going, or that he’s going at all, but he hugs her when she comes home as he’s heading back up the stairs. He calls Lip and tells him. He makes Lip promise not to tell Fiona until he’s gone. He hugs Liam and then kisses him on the head, does the same to Debbie, Carl and Frannie. They’re his family. He’ll miss them, but he needs Mickey. 

-

When he gets off the flight he looks around for dark hair and blue eyes, but he can’t find Mickey. That is until there’s a body wrapped around his own. A body with hair that’s almost blonde, but his eyes are still blue. 

His eyes burn with happy tears and they don’t talk, but they hug for what feels like hours before Mickey pulls back and kisses him. There was a time in his life where Ian thought the last time he would ever kiss Mickey was at the border and that broke his heart. He didn’t want to remember Mickey in a wig and a dress, tears threatening to fall and wreck the makeup he had managed to put on in the car.

He doesn’t have to now. Not now when his hair is cut like when Ian came back from the army and he’s wearing jeans and a shirt with the sleeves cut off. Not now when he’s smiling and he has more freckles than ever. Ian doesn’t have to remember him at the border, he doesn’t have to remember him at all because he’s here now and he’s never going to leave him again. 

“Mick,” he gasps into the kiss, pulling back so he could put their foreheads together and just look at him. 

“Hi,” he smiles, looking the happiest Ian has ever seen him, even with tears in his eyes to match Ian’s, “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” Ian says, a half sob, half laugh choking up his words. “So fucking much, Mick.” 

“C’mon, let's go home. I’ll show you the beach tomorrow. I took the day off.” He grabs Ian’s hand and leads him to the parking lot. Ian isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t the motorcycle they stopped next to.

“Holy shit, Mick! Is this yours?” He gapes at Mickey and fights off images of him riding it because just the idea turns him on. 

“Yeah,” he smiles, “Got it a few months ago.” He handed Ian a helmet before swinging a leg over the side of the bike. “Hurry the fuck up. If you wanna fuck me tonight we gotta get going now.” 

Ian laughed, putting the helmet on his head before climbing on behind Mickey and wrapping his arms around Mickey’s waist. He pressed as close as he could to Mickey’s back and leaned his helmet covered head against him. The ride back to Mickey’s place was short, and Ian smiled when they pulled up to an apartment building that looked more than half decent.

Ian grabbed his bags off of where Mickey has strapped them to a compartment to his bike. 

“Here,” Mickey said, “give me that one.” He picked up Ian’s backpack from where he’d dropped it to the ground so he could grab his duffel. 

They take the elevator to the third floor and Mickey leads him to the apartment at the end of the hall. The apartment isn’t huge, only one bedroom, but what else would Mickey need? There’s a couch in the living room with a soft looking blanket thrown across the back and a decent sized TV on the wall across from it. The kitchen looked small, but there was everything Mickey would need, and some chairs at a breakfast bar to eat at. 

They brought Ian’s bags to the bedroom, dropping them at the foot of it before collapsing on the bed together. Mickey is laid out on his back, on the same side of the bed he’d always had when they lived together. Ian moves until he has his head on Mickey’s chest and his arms around him. 

“What’s up, Ee?” Mickey asks softly. 

“Just wanted to cuddle you. I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

Ian looks up at him and before he knows it, they’re kissing. It’s slow and entirely different from the kiss at the airport. Slower and sweeter, less full of desperation. Ian shifts up until he’s holding himself on his elbows above Mickey. His eyes are squeezed shut and his hands are in Mickey’s hair. Mickey’s hands are wherever he can reach, Ian’s face, hair, back, arms. He never wants to stop kissing Mickey. 

They fuck that night, not that either of them would describe it as fucking. They knew fucking, fucking was back alleys and abandoned buildings and freezers in the Kash ‘N Grab. Fucking was bruised hips and banging headboards. This was slow and gentle in a way neither of them had been with anyone else. Mickey’s hips weren’t bruised, but there were hickeys on his neck and Ian’s hands in his own. 

-

For a split second when Ian woke up the next morning he’d thought maybe it was all a dream. His eyes were still closed, but there was no warm body pressed against his, and the other side of the bed felt cold, like it did if he slept in Lip’s room. 

He opened his eyes, but he was still here. In Mickey’s apartment. _Their_ apartment. The sun shined in with a red glow from the curtains and he could smell bacon and eggs coming from the kitchen. He smiled, pulled on a pair of boxers that he knew didn’t belong to him and grabbed his meds from the bedside table before he went to find Mickey. 

“Mornin’, Mick.” He greets, wrapping his arms around Mickey where he stands at the stove and resting his head on his back, just as he had done on Mickey’s bike the night before. 

“Hi. I made breakfast.” He’s smiling and he squeezes one of Ian’s hands with his free hand. 

“I can see that. You make any coffee?” Mickey nods, but tenses slightly. “I’ve been drinking coffee on my meds for two years, Mick. It’s only one cup a day.” 

Mickey nods again, relaxes into Ian’s arms. “I don’t want to smother you again.”

“You won’t. It’s different now that I have my shit together. I don’t mind being taken care of. As long as you let me return the favour.” He ducks his face into Mickey’s neck and kisses him, smiling there when he hears Mickey laugh softly. 

The toaster beeps and pops up. Mickey grabs the slices he made, two for Ian and two for himself. Once they both have their plates they sit next to each other at the breakfast bar. 

“Hey, Mick,” Ian asks, hooking his foot around Mickey’s ankle, and resting his chin on his hand so he can look over at him. 

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t been this happy in a long time.”

And it’s true. He hasn’t been this happy since they were going on their date, walking down the street with their arms around each other, singing loud and carefree. He was happy now, eating breakfast with Mickey in their apartment, knowing that he’ll get to do this every day for the rest of his life. 

“Me neither, man. I’m glad you’re here now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this! I can't write smut, but I tried my best to explain with that paragraph. 
> 
> Please leave comments or kudos!


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